


Hard to Pretend

by drjamband



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Star Trek: Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drjamband/pseuds/drjamband
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the trekkink LJ.  Jim wakes up after dying and thinks Leonard is an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hard to Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned, this was written for a prompt on the trekkink LJ. In summary, it asked for Kirk saying, "You know, when I first woke up...I thought you were an angel," and then Leonard's reaction.
> 
> Title taken from the song "Angel" by Dave Matthews Band.

Opening his eyes makes him want to throw up, so he closes them and groans. He feels a hand brush over his hair. He knows that hand: it’s put him back together after countless fights, scrapes, accidents, and away missions gone awry. He forces his mouth open, pushes air through his throat in the form of one word: “Bones.” He isn’t sure Leonard hears it; hell, he barely hears it himself, but then he hears an answer.

“Jim.” It’s just as soft, as though Leonard wasn’t sure he was going to speak but he did it before he could stop himself. Jim groans in response. “Can you open your eyes, kid?”

“I…” he manages, but his throat is so raw that he can’t manage much else, instead coughing weakly. With effort he opens one eye, then the other, and almost gasps at what he sees. The yellowish light of his hospital room forms a bright orb that stings his sensitive retinas, but then something is in the light’s way, blocking most of it. It’s Leonard, a cautiously hopeful look on his face, the edges of the orb circling his floppy, chestnut hair. He’s dressed in a white coat and white pants, and there seems to be a ring of glowing light around his entire body.

“There you go, kid,” he says. He suddenly moves, but Jim doesn’t think he can turn his head to follow. But Leonard returns swiftly with a glass of water, a purple straw swaying against the lip. Jim parts his lips so Leonard can slip the straw between them, and Jim takes a swift gulp. “Slow, kid,” he says, running a hand over Jim’s head as he pulls the glass away. “You can have some more soon, I promise,” he says in response to Jim’s agonized look.

Jim has a thousand and one things he wants to say, but he can’t seem to form a full sentence in his mind. All that comes out of his mouth is an embarrassing whine while his eyes are wide and pleading for his friend to understand. Leonard smirks. “I’ll tell you everything later. You need to sleep.” Jim scrunches his face. “You’ve been sleeping for two weeks, I know. But you need a natural REM cycle, Jim.”

Leonard moves past the light again just as Jim closes his eyes, and Jim smiles, the image of his friend burned onto the inside of his eyelids.

\--------

“So then the tribble starting purring or whatever the hell tribbles do, and I yelled for a cryotube.” It’s three days after Jim woke that first time, and he’s finally well enough to drink and eat some bland foods. He can talk again, which makes him much happier, and he sleeps less. Leonard finally feels that he’s well enough to hear the story of how he was brought back to life. “I put some other member of Khan’s crew in an induced coma and put you in the tube. Spock beamed down to go after Khan. I think he was set on killing him.”

“Spock?” Jim asks. “I mean, I remember he looked upset when I...you know...but I didn’t think he would….” Jim trails off.

“Upset is the understatement of the century, kid. He was so angry he was shaking. And don’t tell him I told you this, but I’m pretty damn sure he was crying.”

Jim’s spoonful of green jello stops halfway in the air. “Wow,” he says.

“Yeah,” Leonard breathes. “So then I can’t get in touch with him so Uhura beams down and Spock is beating the absolute shit out of Khan. I mean he would have killed him if she hadn’t interrupted. Spock knocked him out and we got them back on board the ship so I could take Khan’s blood. Then I started the transfusion, and once you had a pulse again I took you out of the tube and you’ve been in this room ever since.”

Jim has abandoned his meal, enthralled by the story. “Bones,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue. “I can’t...you saved my life.”

Bones huffs, amused. “Spock and Uhura had something to do with it too, ya know.”

“Yeah, but...they didn’t orchestrate the whole thing. They didn’t _actually_ treat me and sit by my bed every day for two weeks. They didn’t move my arms and legs while I was out so I wouldn’t be weak as fuck when I woke up. They didn’t help me eat and drink and carry me to the bathroom and bathe me, embarrassing as that is. That was all you, Bones.”

Leonard ducks his head and blushes.

“You know,” Jim continues, “when I first woke up...I thought you were an angel.”

Leonard doesn’t miss the weight of Jim’s gaze or the way the words float in the space between them like little blinking stars against the inky black of space. “Ain’t no angel, kid,” he finally replies, his voice gruff. But fuck it, he thinks, because it’s Jim Kirk, and when Jim died Leonard flopped into a chair and felt as cold as Jim looked. Jim, who when it seemed like the transfusion would take, caused Leonard to order everyone out of the room so he could put his hands over his face and sob and sob because Jim was going to _live_.

So he leans over and kisses Jim because Jim thinks the world of Leonard, but Leonard thinks the whole universe of Jim.

 


End file.
